All in One Place

by Carolyne Aarsen

  “I had pristine grammar until Nelson decided we needed beef cows to call ourselves proper farmers,” Kathy said, positioning a picture on the page. “Of course he ended up getting cows other farmers brought to the auction mart to dump on some unsuspecting slob, a.k.a. us. I felt like putting a Statue of Liberty up in front of our corrals… You know, ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore…’”

  “‘Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me…’” I finished for her.

  Kathy's laughter created another shared moment. “Those homeless and tempest-tossed cows created a tempest in a tossed teapot. Working with them was a time of testing for my faith.”

  And there it was again. That oblique reference quietly creating a space that I didn't have the tools to bridge. The only faith I spent any time on was not of the supernatural kind. I had faith that the bus would get me where I needed to go. Faith that when I put money into the pop machine, I would actually get a can of pop. Of course that faith was sometimes tested, but not enough to make me avoid pop machines or buses.

  Shallow as I was, however, I knew this was not the faith that Kathy was talking about, or that Leslie now shared.

  I hadn't bumped up against religion very much in my life, but since arriving in Harland, it had come at me from many and varied angles. If I were a person who actually believed that God did, in fact, care about me personally, I might think He was trying to tell me something.

  Kathy glanced pointedly at her watch. “I should get going.”

  “Speaking of time,” I said, “Dan said he and Jack were going to be coming in in a bit. I don't know how long that is, but I suspect you do.”

  Leslie sighed again, her eyes flicking to the clock. “Guess that means he'll want coffee.”

  Leslie gathered up the pictures while Kathy sorted and stored.

  “Anything I can do?” I offered.

  “I want to help!” Anneke called out, jumping up from the floor.

  “If you want to help, you have to wash your hands,” Leslie said.

  “You may as well wash your hands, too,” Kathy said to her daughter. “We're going to leave pretty soon.”

  “You come and help me, Auntie Terra,” Anneke commanded.

  Though the bathroom was down the hall from the kitchen, I could still hear Leslie and Kathy talking. They had lowered their voices, but I picked up a word here and there.

  And then I caught Amelia's name, which sent my radar spinning.

  While Carlene and Anneke let the water splash over their hands, I leaned closer to the kitchen, listening intently.

  “So what's with Amelia Castleman's baby?” Kathy was asking. “That little tyke looks four months old.”

  “There's definitely a problem,” Leslie murmured. “Malnutrition, developmental delays, but that's only a guess.”

  “Every time I see that child, she's worse. I can't believe Social Services hasn't taken the little thing away from her.”

  Here their words were drowned out by Anneke's and Carlene's chatter. I leaned closer.

  “Without being able to run tests, I'm guessing she suffers from failure to thrive,” I heard Leslie say.

  “That baby needs help,” Kathy was saying. “It just breaks my heart to see her so helpless and uncared for. I heard through the grapevine that Amelia took her into a bar, leaves the baby in the car when she goes out. That girl definitely has a few lumps in her Play-Doh. I don't know what Rod sees in her.”

  I clenched my fists, fighting down the urge to barge into the kitchen and defend my friend. Sure, Amelia may not be the swiftest, but all she needed was help and support. Not condemnation and judgment.

  The slamming of the screen door announced Dan's, Jack's, and Nicholas's entrance, and Leslie and Kathy changed the subject.

  Kathy was all packed up by the time I brought the girls back to their mothers clean and polished. Jack was seated at the table while Dan rummaged through a drawer of the buffet, looking for something. Nicholas was unpacking a puzzle on the floor beside him and Anneke ran to join him. Leslie was grinding beans, releasing the rich scent of freshly ground coffee.

  She never ceased to surprise me. Four years ago she would have told Dan, in no uncertain terms, to make his own coffee, and here she was, a June Cleaver for the twenty-first century.

  “Hey, peanut. We should get going,” Kathy said to Carlene as she slung a large black bag over her shoulder. “Thanks for helping her clean up,” she said to me.

  All I could give her in return was a noncommittal shrug. I'd thought better of her until I heard her coldly discussing Amelia's situation. I felt a tremble of sorrow that she could so casually discuss taking this baby away from her mother. Children needed to be with their parents. Especially their mothers.

  “You're looking very solemn,” Leslie teased as I pulled cups out of the cupboard while the coffeemaker gurgled purposefully in the background.

  “Life is very serious.” I caught a puzzled glance from Jack that pinned and held my own.

  Relax. Breathe.

  Jack was trained to observe and, I suppose, mistrust. I was becoming too involved. So I gave him a dual-purpose smile. One that would send him off the scent and remind me to relax.

  To my surprise, he smiled back, the faint lines fanning out from the corners of his eyes softening his expression. To my even greater surprise, his smile sent a flurry of anticipation scuttling up my throat. Then my stomach fluttered, and while my emotions were flitting about like deranged butterflies I realized what was happening.

  In spite of my short but checkered past here in Harland, I could see that Jack was interested. And the trouble was, I was becoming interested as well, reacting to his appeal in the age-old way of women of all ages.

  Dangerous, problematic, and simply a bad idea for a slow learner like me.

  “Are you going to put those cups out?” Leslie gave me a poke in the ribs that jolted me back into the moment.

  “Actually, I figured if I frowned at them long enough, fear would send them scurrying to the table on their own,” I joked, scrabbling for control, for humor, anything to deflect unwelcome emotions.

  “Leslie, did you find a piece of lined paper on the counter?” Dan shut a drawer and stood up.

  “No. Why?”

  “It's my prayer.”

  “Don't tell me you lost it again,” Leslie said as Dan yanked open another drawer. Leslie caught my puzzled look. “Dan was asked to pray in church tomorrow, and he wrote out the prayer,” Leslie explained.

  Dan crouched down by the desk in one corner of the kitchen, yanking open drawers and riffling through papers. “Are you sure you didn't put it away?”

  “I wouldn't dare even breathe on it.” Leslie poured coffee and rolled her eyes at the same time. “I thought I saw a folded-up piece of paper in the upstairs bathroom.”

  “Right. Anneke, can you run upstairs for Daddy and get the piece of paper sitting on the bathroom counter? It has lines and writing on it.”

  “Sure!” Anneke jumped up from the puzzle she and Nicholas were putting together.

  “I've been finding the paper this prayer is written on lying on the table, on the back of the toilet tank, tucked in the pocket of his pants.” Leslie turned to me. “You'll hear the edited version tomorrow when you come to church with us.”

  “Come to church?” I released a quick laugh. “You're kidding, right?”

  Leslie's features froze into an expression of entreaty, and I knew precisely what she was thinking. I had seen the same look on her face when she wanted me to tell Hay ward Atkins, who was in my chemistry class, that she had a crush on him.

  Could you please cooperate without making a big fuss over this?

  “So…” I gave Leslie a bogus smile as visions of sleeping in rapidly slipped away. “Uh… what should I wear?” I asked, for lack of a more profound question.

  Leslie's face reflected her relief. “I'll help you figure that out
tonight.”

  I thought of the random clothes I had tossed into my knapsack and realized that I would probably be scamming an outfit from her anyway.

  Nicholas got up from the puzzle he was now bored with, and as he reached for a cookie, I saw faded scars on his arm.

  “What happened to Nicholas's arms?” I asked Leslie.

  She frowned, then glanced at her son. “Scars from the meningitis rash he got last year.”

  Guilt washed over me like a tidal wave as I thought of him lying in a hospital bed last summer while I was incommunicado. Going to church was the least I could do for my sister and her family.

  Chapter Twelve

  The door to my bedroom cracked open. Light sliced across the darkened floor. “You awake?” I heard Leslie whisper.

  Without waiting for an answer, she ran across the floor and vaulted herself onto my bed, her grinning face landing inches from mine.

  “Aren't you in the wrong room?” I said, making my voice croaky so she'd think she'd woken me up when, in fact, I'd been lying here wide awake since I said good night an hour ago. Too many thoughts for too little brain space.

  “I was finishing up a scrapbook page, and Dan went to bed ages ago.” Leslie clicked on the little bedside light, turned, wiggled, and wobbled, settling herself in. “So. Talk to me.”

  The sight of her face, inches from mine, beckoned beloved memories. After each special event in our lives, she would jump on my bed when Mom was asleep and bark out her curt demand. I always complied. But this time her request chased all lucid thought away.

  “I had a good day,” was all I could come up with.

  “It had an interesting start.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She pulled back a bit, her eyes intent on mine. “What do you think of Jack?”

  “I would bet money I'm not his type.”

  “Really? That's good, then.”

  “And again I say, what do you mean?”

  Leslie rubbed the side of her nose. “Well, it's just that he seemed interested in you…”

  “Right.”

  “Oh, c'mon. Don't tell me you didn't notice. You've always had this power over guys. Everywhere you go, guys fall for that long curly hair, that cute nose, and the hint of freckles. You look so sweet and innocent…”

  “Which we both know I am not.”

  “I don't mean to put you down.”

  “Really?” I tried for a smile. “You're doing a pretty good job.”

  “I did say you had a cute nose.”

  “Where are you going with this?”

  She sighed, then wriggled her own cute nose. “I could see by the way he was looking at you that he likes you. He thinks you're interesting.” She held up a warning finger. “Which you are. You're fun, you're pretty, you like to joke…” She put her hand on my shoulder and squeezed, as if preparing me for her next onslaught. “I'm so glad you're here, and I enjoy having you around. But I'm not dumb. I know that once this court thing is over and you've paid me back, you're going to get itchy feet and head out again. You'll be gone.”

  “You should be writing horoscopes.”

  “That's against my newfound religion.”

  “There's lots of good money in telling people that Venus is on the cusp, which means financial success or romance is in their future.”

  Leslie laughed, then grew serious. “I can't predict the future. Only God can. But I'm pretty sure that your future is down the road once you're done here. And Jack, well, he's been through a tough relationship with a girl who said she was going to settle down in Harland and then left him. He even bought a house.”

  “Very astute of him. Real estate. Good investment.” Leslie's veiled warning made me duck and deflect.

  “He's a great guy. I don't want to see him hurt.”

  “He's not interested in me, Leslie. So your little lecture was a waste of our precious, and as you so perceptively said, short time together.”

  “I didn't mean to hurt you, Terra.”

  I pressed my hand against my heart. “The truth always hurts, honey. Besides, a churchgoing guy is definitely not my type. And that whole cop thing? Major turnoff.”

  “You've always had this anti-cop thing. Where did that come from?”

  “Childhood hang-up.”

  “From Mom, then,” Leslie said with a dismissive snort.

  “I had my own experiences with policemen.”

  “Like the time that social worker and cop came and you locked the door and pretended to be Mom so they wouldn't think we were alone?”

  “And others.” I caught her by the hand, willing her to understand. “Mom had it right, Leslie. We were better off as a family. I did what was necessary to keep us together. To keep us a family.”

  “If you want to call that a family. I still believe if Social Services had gotten involved in our lives, we would have been in a better place.”

  My mind flashed back to the little girls I'd seen on my first day in Harland. That could have been Leslie and me in the back of that police car. Somehow I didn't think it mattered how beautiful a house they went to; their first preference would be their own mom and their own home.

  “What would you have considered a better place?”

  Leslie's soft smile showed me that she hadn't noticed the tinge of anger in my voice.

  “I used to imagine that we lived in a house with a yard and a dog…”

  “Exactly what you have now,” I said quietly.

  “Yeah.” Leslie wriggled again. Hugged me again. “It's nice to have you here in my house, big sister.”

  I smiled back and gently touched her face. “It's nice to be in your house. I missed you.”

  “And I missed you.”

  I knew she meant the comment as a gentle echo of what I said, but her simple words drove a wedge of guilt deep into my heart. I took a long, slow breath and clutched her shoulder, squeezing, as if by doing so I could convey a small portion of my regret. “You need to know that I'm sorry,” I whispered, taking the plunge toward the real reason I was here. “I'm really, really sorry I wasn't here for you. With Nicholas.”

  Leslie held my gaze, then nodded slightly. I was glad she didn't offer me immediate absolution. That would have made my confession seem cheap and meaningless.

  “I'm sorry, too,” Leslie said finally, her voice a whisper in the quiet that had sprung up between us. “I missed you and wanted you here. I had Dan's family, and they were great, but I needed my own flesh and blood. My own family.”

  I gave her a wan smile, offering her regret and sorrow space to settle in and be acknowledged.

  I caught her clasped hands between mine, covering them. “We don't have a lot of family, do we?”

  “I've got more than I used to.”

  Leslie's quiet comment reminded me of her now-extended family.

  “And very, very occasionally that woman we call Mom.”

  Leslie sighed. “I wonder how a person can abandon her own children.”

  Now we officially needed to move on.

  “Remember how we used to make plans?” I said quietly, letting the past sift through the present. “How we had such a definite idea of what we wanted our lives to look like?”

  “I remember cutting pictures out of catalogs and pasting them in our dream books.” Thankfully, Leslie was willing to play along.

  “You did end up with the dream, didn't you?” I asked. “The house, the kids, the husband.”

  Leslie's gentle laugh underscored my melancholy. “I saw it as more of a nightmare at first.”

  “So you said in your e-mails…”

  “But I know I'm in a good place. I love Dan more than ever. My kids aren't a burden.” She laughed, burrowing a little deeper into the pillow. “Well, not all the time. I have help and support in taking care of them. I've discovered faith…” She hesitated there, giving me an apologetic smile. “I still feel a little funny talking about God and… my relationship with Him. I know you don't feel the same way…
probably don't even care… I should probably be evangelizing you…” She let out an embarrassed laugh and stopped there.

  I wasn't ready to be on the receiving end of her evangelizing. Church tomorrow would be enough for me.

  “But, Terra, I found something when I found faith,” she continued, obviously not done with the God stuff. “Something big and deep, with roots in eternity. And I know you're not comfortable with me talking about all that God stuff,” she said, resting her hand on my shoulder. “So I'll stop now.”

  As she spoke, a faint echo of the emptiness I'd tried most of the past ten years to eradicate sounded deep in my soul. The idea that there was something more than this world— something beyond and above it. The yoga classes tried to fill that void, but I grew impatient with the facile answers and mumbo jumbo. Any of the other remedies I'd tried gave me healing with no depth. The self-help books, the motivational tapes, the false intimacy of casual dating, all skimmed over my pain. The life I was working at wasn't functioning.

  But God? From what I knew, He required a whole lot more than a quick read, a class one night a week, and a vague promise to practice.

  “Hey. Terra. Where are you?”

  I tossed her a quick smile, ready to move into another place. “So I'm guessing you threw your dream book away.”

  “I did.” Leslie lifted her head a fraction, her eyes boring into mine, as if burrowing into my brain. “Why did you come?”

  “I told you.”

  “You didn't hitchhike across three states just to ask me about my dream book or hang up clothes with me or work at a diner.”

  As our gazes locked, a sense of urgency propelled me forward. A desire to spill out all the things I had been holding back.

  “Please tell me. I'm your sister.”

  I licked my lips, then fortified myself with a long, slow intake of oxygen. “I didn't answer your e-mails right away because… well… I was having troubles of my own.”

  “What kind of troubles?”

  It was a blank question, asked to maintain momentum. I twisted the blanket around my hands.

  Leslie pulled the blanket away and wrapped her hands around mine. “What kind of troubles?” she repeated.